Travel help desk

Your flight just changed. Here is what actually moves the needle.

Cancellations, long delays, schedule changes and route cuts all end the same way: a queue. The passengers who get the surviving seats are the ones who reach a booking agent first, not the ones refreshing the app. Two things are worth doing straight away.

Get a booking changedClaim for a delay

1. Get the booking changed

A cancelled or heavily delayed flight puts you into a re-accommodation queue that is worked in the order people reach an agent. The automatic reassignment an airline pushes to your phone is whatever was left over at the moment it ran, and it is almost never the best routing still available. A live agent can look at the later banks, the alternate hubs and, where the fare allows it, a different carrier entirely.

  • Move before the cancellation posts. Once a disruption is announced, the waiver window is usually already open and a change made inside it is treated differently to one made after.
  • Ask for the routing, not the flight. Naming an acceptable alternate hub gives the agent something to work with instead of a yes/no on one flight number.
  • Have the record locator ready. Every minute on hold spent reading out details is a minute the seat inventory keeps draining.

2. Claim what the delay is worth

Compensation for a long delay or a cancellation is almost never paid out on its own. It is claimed, the claim window is finite, and the entitlement depends on the route and the reason rather than on how annoyed you were. A claim service checks the flight against the rules and files it, and there is no reason not to run a flight through it if you were held up.

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Today’s disruption coverage

The travel desk tracks cancellations, ground stops, staffing disruption and route changes as they are reported, with a plain read on what each one means if you are holding a ticket.

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